Spoon Deep in the Crucible – Destiny PvP Strategy Guide: Day 4 Part 1

Well, Guardians, it turns out sickness, family, and turkey have a tremendous power to make one neglect his writing. Sorry for the delay, but finally, here we are. The Moon. To make up for lost time, I’ll be powering my way through to Mars today as well for some double post bonanza.

If our Earth is a wasteland, our Moon is Hell. Its interior is downright infected, and it’s leaking out onto the surface. I’ve even heard rumors of the Moon being hollow. It’s starting to fall apart, getting eaten from the inside out. There’s nothing we can do to reverse the damage. But, we can stop its spread. No, I’m only here to fuel up, nothing else. I want out. But…something is drawing me in; drawing me to st; drawing me to fight. It’s this inexplicable force I can’t describe, but I know others feel it too. Is it pride? Is it duty? Honor? All I know is that I feel it, and it’s growing inside me like the infection grows inside the Moon. Only, it’s not breaking me down, it’s building me up, stitching together my previous wounds, physical and emotional alike, urging me to carry on, to keep pushing, to fight through the blood, the sweat, the tears…even death. The Moon is calling…our moon. I’m heading towards its center, down and down into its depths, not knowing what awaits me at its core. It’s dark, it’s damp…it’s quiet. I take one step at a time, slowly, carefully, inching closer to a faint green glow in the distance, afraid but unwavering. It’s right in front of me. I reach out my hand, it’s right there…

We’ve woken the Hive.

First Light

First Light map overview

Control

I’ll say the same thing here as I will for Bastion: I don’t like it. I don’t like First Light. Bungie, if you wanted team snipers, you should’ve just made team snipers. I like team snipers, and First Light would be a great map on which to play it, but this is Control. And for Control, First Light is just…too big. That’s not to say the map is too big, it’s not really. Compared to the size of some of the most beloved Halo maps (Valhalla cough) it’s really quite normal. But for 6v6? How about 8v8. Let’s take Big Team Battle to Destiny. But I’m not here to talk about what PvP should be, I’m here to talk about what it is.

Okay, Control on First Light. I believe I take quite an unconventional approach on this map, which is this: Hold zones A and C. Now, I know some people will wholeheartedly disagree, but hear me out. You can get from A to C in the same time it takes to get from either to B, and you can get there in a near straight-line path without even going outside. If you position say, 3 people at A and 3 people at C, or even 2 and 2 with 2 runners, you can defend both points with ease. I actually strongly dislike defending B because of all the different attack lanes your enemy can use to take it; there’s the C-side turret looking down, the two floors inside, the roof, the open space towards A… With both A and C, the enemy has only two options; this way or that. I think this makes them easier to defend, and when combined with the straight-shot route between them, I’ve found the most success using this strategy. (Note: usually doesn’t work with randoms, only because people LOVE zone B. Really. Doesn’t matter which map. I think it has cake…).

Clash

First of all, no Rumble or Skirmish? No. Bungie deemed this map too big for only 6 Guardians at a time, and they were right, it is. But Clash? Clash on First Light is team snipers with more guns. It’s not the strict sniper/pistol/nothing else team snipers you know and love from Halo, but it’s team snipers nonetheless. If you dare stay outside and avoid this map’s buildings, you’re going to be sniped. So what’s the solution? Snipe back. If the outdoors scares you and you instead choose to spend your time on First Light inside as much as possible, your kills count will suffer. And kills in Clash, as in all Destiny Crucible game types, are key. So my suggestion is to strafe from spot to spot picking off whomever you can. If you’ve never used a sniper, you will struggle. But only at first, as the more experience you gain, the better you’ll become. And once you’re good, this is really quite fun.

The Anomaly

The Anomaly map overview

Rumble and Skirmish

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum from First Light, this map is much too small for 12 Guardians at once (although I’d love to see it done). That rules out Control and Clash. I do play a bit of Skirmish with Jake and Dupie every now and then, so I’ve had my share of experiences on this map. How do we win? We don’t go inside. We patrol the map’s perimeter, granting us vastly superior shooting lanes and much, much more room to maneuver. Running around inside is a different game entirely, filled with OHKO supers, grenades, shotguns, and fusion rifles, all things I hate. We do frequent the middle occasionally (ha oxymoron), but only to cut our way across the map towards one of the heavy ammo spawns. Then it’s that perimeter D all day. And defense wins championships. Coincidence? I think not.

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